My awesome colleague George Thompson passed this along to me. I think it summarizes nicely what, to me, is probably the most fundamental thing to keep in mind as a librarian, educator, or human being more generally: that genuine connection with other human beings is at the core of everything we do.

4 responses to “Connection is Primary”

Hi Kevin, I couldn’t agree with you more. Human connection is the key to effective librarianship. I reckon being able to take a genuine interest in practically anything that a client cares about, an appropriate kind of playfulness, patience & truly interacting with clients from a lifelong learning approach (for the librarian & the client) go a very long way. They are very human things & we adapt them to our professional practice. Finding those different bits of us that connect with our different clients goes a long way to providing a great service & to enjoying our work. THANK-YOU for the post & for sharing your blog 🙂 Sandra

Hi Sandra, thanks for the nice response! I really like what you say about taking a genuine interest in who we’re working with, and in sharing our humanness, and how that can bring a sense of playfulness and joy to our work. Not only does that seem to benefit our users, but I think it doesn’t get discussed often enough that authenticity and genuine connection makes our jobs and our work much more satisfying as well.

And, it’s not just that it makes our jobs & work much more satisfying – the connections give us opportunities to help our clients understand what we can do with them & for them, & want to work with us. Wins all over the place 🙂 Thank-you again for sharing your thoughts through the blog!! s